


no speaking left in me

by NegativeGravity



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: All Friendship Is Romantic (But Especially This One), F/F, First Kisses, Rated G for Gal Pals, Resolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, future!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24737866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NegativeGravity/pseuds/NegativeGravity
Summary: she buried me in her hair and I became her creature. — Kotori/Hanayo, pre-relationship.
Relationships: Koizumi Hanayo/Minami Kotori
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	no speaking left in me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qq_riri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qq_riri/gifts).



> I am late and I love you; happy belated birthday, baby bee. may you be so happy you don't know what to do with yourself.

.

.

.

There’s something ritualistic to it — the wet press of the brush against her lips, the slow ceremony in Kotori’s fingers as she moves it, painting the plush fullness of her mouth. The white vulnerability of Hanayo’s neck, head tilted back, eyes heavy, heavy. Slipping closed with something darker than sleep, darker than trust.

Yes, there is something ritualistic to it. Something ritualistic and _familiar_.

She thinks of high school, of a breathless, dizzying ascent — their cicada days, Nozomi calls them. Their long, wild summer, the one she’d wished would never end. The one she still wishes had never ended. She thinks of green rooms, a thousand of them, less, more — they’re blurred together, seven years and late into the autumn of their youth. The only thing she can recall with any clarity about those rooms, those days, is Kotori’s hand under her jaw, tipping her head back.

Just like this.

She doesn’t realize she’s lost herself to the moment until Kotori’s soft, “All done, Hana-chan,” shears the webbing of its spell.

She looks at herself in the mirror, takes a moment to reconcile the woman she sees with the girl she knows. Takes another moment to fight the urge to touch her fingers to her mouth, muss Kotori’s work, because really, the burnt umber _is_ lovely on her. It’s just…

_It’s so a_ _dult_ _, is all,_ and that shouldn’t be as painful as it is.

But then, she’s not going on this date as Hanayo, is she? No, Shinji is expecting _Kayo_ at the entirely too bourgeois, entirely too French restaurant down in Roppongi.

It’s a long train ride; he might just meet her. “Thank you,” she says, shaking herself enough to muster a watery smile.

Kotori sets the brush down on the vanity table with a soft _click_. “You can just cancel, you know. If you aren’t feeling like it. It’s something you _can_ do.”

Her smile curls a little stronger at the emphasis. And she could, couldn’t she? But — “Thank you,” she says, again, feeling like a slow, overgrown child; and maybe at the end of the day that’s what she is. “But the food is supposed to be lovely. And…”

_And you’re lonely,_ Kotori doesn’t say. She takes hold of her hands instead, rests her cheek down on her knuckles in lieu of a kiss. “Okay. Just promise me you’ll dine and dash if it turns out he’s a bore.”

Hanayo laughs, and the whole thing seems a little more alright.

§

Her phone rings at seven fifty-four. She’d given it until eight thirty, and she hates herself a little for how, all things considered, this is a pleasant surprise.

“He was a bore, then?”

Hanayo’s laugh at the other end of the line is a weak, wet thing. There’s a sniffle, and then — “Worse,” she says, but because she is _Hanayo_ , sweet and trusting and forgiving Hanayo, she doesn’t elaborate. “Oh, Kotori-chan. Why do I even try?”

She has no answer to that. Or, more precisely, she has no answer that wouldn’t wound her, wound _them_. She bites her lip so hard the skin splits. “You’re not on a train,” she says instead, gauging, forcing herself to breathe abdominally.

“Cab,” Hanayo says. She can almost see her dabbing at her eyes. “I didn’t want to break down around so many people. And. And — God, this is so _stupid_ — I wanted to sit down.”

“Hey now,” Kotori says, gentle, chiding. She tucks her phone between her ear and shoulder to put the kettle on. “If you’re going to cry, you _should_ be comfortable.”

Another watery laugh. They stay like that for a while, just breathing, listening to the other breathe over the line, making static in the silence. “I’ll be home soon,” Hanayo says, eventually, and she sounds a little calmer, a little more like herself.

The kettle whistles. Kotori turns the burner off with a twist of the dial.

“Alright,” she says, softly, fondly. “I’ll go buy some cake to go with our tea, hm?” This is a lie, and she suspects Hanayo knows it, too — even if she’s too nice to call her out on it. The crumpled receipt in her pocket shows that she bought the fruit roll precisely sixteen minutes after Hanayo had walked out the door.

There’s something ritualistic to this, too. Neither of them acknowledge it.

§

They make a night of it, pots of tea and bad American pictures, roll-cake with strawberries. Hanayo talks her into making crêpes, and although most of them come out a little burnt, they’re still good once stuffed with chocolate and too much whipped cream.

Sometime after two, Hanayo says, “He tried to kiss me.”

“Did he,” Kotori says, without inflection. She’s got Hanayo’s head in her lap, one hand absently braiding and unbraiding the hair near her right temple.

Hanayo studies her profile, the soft way the television glow diffuses over her features in a play of blue, pink, red, red. “Yeah,” she says, struggles against a nameless heaviness that’s settled in her chest when she wasn’t paying attention. “And I mean, he _was_ nice, at first, but I just…I couldn’t.” She presses the heels of her palms down on her eyes, hard, thankful Kotori’d made her change, take out her contacts. “He got close and I just…” She stops herself, pries her hands away before her eyes can start to ache. “I’m not cut out for this, I think.”

“Dating?”

“Love.”

Kotori peers down at her with an odd look on her face, and all Hanayo can think about is how much she wants to reach out and smooth the crease between her eyebrows, keep her thumb there. “Don’t be stupid, Hana-chan. If there’s one thing you’re made for, it’s love.” A pause. “ _Being_ loved. It suits you.”

A lovely flush creeps up her chest, spreads peonies over her neck, jaw, the delicate shells of her ears. Dusts the tops of her cheeks. “…Thank you.”

And then —

And then Kotori’s bending down, her hair a waterfall of pale light, shielding them both from the world; and her mouth is on her mouth, and everything that was horrible a moment ago isn’t, can’t be.

“Men are stupid,” Kotori murmurs against her lips, into the parting seam of her mouth. “Maybe it’s just that you don’t need them.”

Hanayo reaches up, tangles her fingers in that long, long hair. Feels the world shift, and it’s right, it’s all finally right, and the heaviness in her chest is no longer there. “Maybe,” she says, and they’re kissing again, and it’s perfect, perfect, even with the weird angle, even with the ache blooming high in her shoulders.

.

.

.

* * *

_**fin.** _


End file.
